anderson court reporting 706 duke street, …...2015/11/18 · 2 europe-2015/11/18 anderson court...

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ANDERSON COURT REPORTING

706 Duke Street, Suite 100

Alexandria, VA 22314

Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190

THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION

EUROPE'S REFUGEE CRISIS: HOSPITALITY AND ITS DISCONTENTS

Washington, D.C.

Wednesday, November 18, 2015 PARTICIPANTS: Introduction: FIONA HILL Senior Fellow and Director, Center on the United States and Europe The Brookings Institution Moderator: CONSTANZE STELZENMÜLLER Bosch Senior Fellow, Center on the United States and Europe The Brookings Institution Panelists: MATTEO GARAVOGLIA Visiting Fellow, Center on the United States and Europe The Brookings Institution KEMAL KIRIŞCI TUSIAD Senior Fellow, Center on the United States and Europe The Brookings Institution NATHALIE TOCCI Deputy Director, Istituto Affari Internazionali Special Adviser to EU HR/VP Mogherini LEON WIESELTIER Isaiah Berlin Senior Fellow in Culture and Policy, Foreign Policy, Governance Studies The Brookings Institution

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P R O C E E D I N G S

MS. HILL: Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Fiona Hill, the director of the Center on the United

States and Europe here at the Brookings Institutions. And I wanted to welcome all of you here today for a

session perhaps one of the most topical current issues, the refugee crisis in Europe.

We decided to this event as part of a series, some of you may have already attended

some of our previous events, a word in advance of the really terrible and tragic terrorist attacks in Paris

last Friday. Obviously that has changed the debate somewhere where in the United States and also in

Europe. And I think that's actually one of the things that we want to do here today is to deconflict all of

the issues that have very unfortunately been linked together in the commentary.

We want to do this in several ways, one of which was some of the photographs that many

of you have seen when you came into the auditorium, which we've stopped now for during the course of

the discussion, but that we will start showing again as the discussion wraps up. These are some pictures

that have been taken by a young photographer, Peter van Agtmael, who is part of the Magnum

photography group. Peter has a personal connection to Brookings. His father, Antoine van Agtmael is

one of our trustees. And it was actually through that relationship that relationship that we were able to

ask Peter to share with us photographs that otherwise would been displayed in some other formats.

Peter traveled just a month or so ago with a whole group of Syrian refugees all the way

along the pass from the Middle East into Europe. And you will have seen from some of the pictures here

about the way that he's captured the true nature of the refugee movement, emphasizing most graphically

I think here the diverse nature of many of the refugees. And mainly the fact that this is women and

children and families who are trying to flee from really terrible circumstances. And Peter's photographs

you'll be seeing in a number of different settings. He's actually a very well-known photojournalist. And

has recently had photographs in lots of different magazines and elsewhere. And I think you'll see more of

these photographs later.

But the point that we're trying to get across here today is again that this is refugee crisis

that is being dealt with in Europe. It's been conflated now with terrorism, with migration and immigration

debates both in Europe and in the United States. But primarily is that the impetus for us to have this

event was to put stress on the refugees. And we have with us a very distinguished group. I'm going to

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hand over very shortly to my colleague and the moderator, Constanze Stelzenmüller, our Robert Bosch

Senior Fellow, who is originally from Germany, which is of course at the center in many respects of these

debates right now, and she will basically lead the proceedings.

But we also have with us Kemal Kirişci, our Senior TÜSİAD fellow, the heard of our

Turkey project. Some of you have seen a report that Kemal, and another colleague of ours, Beth Ferris,

produced some time ago on the refugee crisis and Turkey's efforts to deal with this. Kemal and our

colleague Beth Ferris have been traveling around over the last several months to refugee camps in

Turkey, in Jordan, on the borders with Syria. They're producing another major report on this, which is

coming out shortly. So there'll be more events. And they were also featured in an event quite recently on

the contours of the refugee crisis. And Kemal has also just come back from meetings in Turkey on the

fenders of the G-20, where of course the refugee crisis was also a major topic.

We also have after Kemal Kirişci, our colleague Matteo Garavoglia, who is our Visiting

Fellow from Italy. And he was an expert on the EU's efforts to deal with refugees, migration, humanitarian

assistance, and development issues. And Matteo is also joined by another Italian, that was Nathalie

Tocci, who came in a little late, because Nathalie Tocci, as well as being a very senior and distinguished

Fellow at the Institute of International Affairs in Rome, is also the Senior Advisor to the High

Representative of Europe, Federica Mogherini. And Nathalie is in town for a number of meetings,

including meetings with the State Department. She has a very good reason for coming in late. And these

are precisely some of the issues that Nathalie is dealing with. So we're very pleased that she was able to

join us today, too.

And last, but certainly not least, is our other Brookings colleague Leon Wieseltier, who

many of you know as a very astute commentator on a whole range of different issues, who is going to

give us a perspective on the debate here in the United States.

And one of the parting thoughts I want to leave us with, is that as this debate unfolds,

keeping an eye on the refugee crisis for what it is, is very important. The United States and many other

countries have not exactly crowned themselves with glory, at similar moments in time, conflating refugee

crisis very often with other issues. We think about 1939 and the turning away of a ship filled with

refugees from the impending crises of the origins of World War II, in the United States, and many other

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times during that period. And also as we're debating our immigration debate, we have our Presidential

campaign, many of the refugees who were conflated with criminals and terrorists from Cuba, and who fled

in the past as well. And I just hope that we can keep our minds on what it is that we're actually here to

talk about today. So without any further ado, I'd like to thank my colleagues for taking part in this

seminar, and thank all of you for joining us today, and look forward to a very stimulating debate.

Constanze, over to you, thank you.

MS. STELZENMÜLLER: Thank you very much for this kind introduction, Fiona. I'd like

to remind everybody that we are on the record and in fact there is a live webcast of this event going on.

We will be doing a half hour or so of back and forth in the panel, and then all of you will get an opportunity

to ask questions and make comments. But, again, remember that a question is a short remark followed

by a question mark. You can follow it be a full stop, if you want. But if it was apposite to the topic at

hand, that would be great. And if you could address to someone on the panel specifically and state your

name and institutional affiliation as you do so, that would be even better because that tells us where

you're coming from quite literally.

As Fiona just told you, I am German. The fact that I am moderator at this panel means

neither that I am the puppet master of this conversation, or that I wish to take myself as somebody

representing my particular country, out of the conversation. On the contrary, I assume that my four

colleagues here, or in fact you, would have questions or remarks to make about Germany's role, and of

course I'm willing to address those. So I am in that sense double hatted.

And I would like to turn immediately to our first speaker to Kemal Kirişci, and I've already

held up this report, which I advise you to all read carefully. And as Fiona said, there's another one

coming out. Kemal is a distinguished specialist on Turkish domestic and foreign policy, and I think it's

well worth remembering as Europe, and particularly my country moans about the numbers of refugees,

the indeed historic numbers of refugees arriving on its shores, that only 5% of the total refugees outside

of Syria, are actually arriving in Europe. All the other ones, the other 95% are in the neighboring

countries, and above all in Turkey.

Kemal, give us a little bit of a sketch of and an idea of what is happening in Turkey right

now, how Turkey is grappling with this, what is it doing right, where are the limitations, and what is asking

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for in terms of solidarity from Europe?

MR. KIRIŞCI: This is what you worry the most when you're sitting in an examination and

you were hinted that a different question was going to be asked. So I'm a bit off balance here. I was

hoping that I would say a few words about root causes, Constanze. Why is it --

MS. STELZENMÜLLER: Oh, feel free. You can do that as well.

MR. KIRIŞCI: Why is it that there are half a million, actually around 600,000 Syrian

refugees in the European Union right now, and they continue to stream in? Very briefly, two sets of root

causes. One root cause, I think you're well aware of it, is what's happening inside Syria and the way in

which the regime in Syria has inflicted the repression, the violence, and the destruction on its own people.

Something that has been going on effectively since March 2011.

At the end of 2011 there were 26,000 Syrian refugees in neighboring countries. That

repression has continued and on top of it, has also come the violence that extremist groups, Islamic

extremist groups including ISIS, has begun to inflict on the Syrian people roughly since June last year,

June in 2014. And when you put the two together today we have 4.2 million Syrian refugees in

neighboring countries as far as United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees registration goes. There

is also people beyond those figures, and on top of it about 7 million Syrians who are displaced. Now that

comes to roughly to half of Syria's population just before these events started in 2011.

Now the second leg two the root causes is the fact that these three countries, as

Constanze has just mentioned, had been holding on their shoulders this burden for the last four years.

And what's very ironic is that the High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, had ben pleading

with the international community, but particularly the U.S. and the European Union to resettle some of

these refugees. He had called for a 130,000 places quarters, but only 100,000 were made available.

And roughly, at the time when this crisis was erupting, around June/July, only two or three thousand had

actually been resettled from these countries. The way I put it is that as the frustration and the doom

about their own future in respect to education, employment, etcetera began to increase, these refugees

began to take the resettlement effort into their hands with the help, unfortunately of human smugglers

who have mostly taken them across the Aegean Sea.

Now, protection of refugees, as far as international legal practice goes, is that it has to be

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a shared responsibility. Not just the responsibility of host countries. And these are, with the exception of

Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan are small countries. I was, as Constanze and Fiona referred, in a camp in

Jordan, the big camp in Jordan, and one Palestinian, who had been working for UNRWA, as we were

sitting at the camp under the shade, told me that the number of refugees that have arrived to Lebanon

would correspond to about 100 million refugees arriving to the United States.

Now the mathematics of it sounds very bland. But when you're sitting in a camp, as you

see 70-, 80,000 people in one camp, you begin to suddenly take a step back and begin to realize what it

means. In Lebanon, for example, 50% of the students in primary schools are Syrians. And then these

states, Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey also have to attend to the health needs of these refugees.

Now the international community, it's not that they haven't chipped in at all. The UN runs

two major budgets for the Syrian crisis, one for Syrians inside Syria and one in the neighboring countries.

But these budgets have not been met. By the time the European refugee crisis erupted only one-third of

those budgets were met. I just checked it today for this event, the international community's conscious

has been mobilized clearly and now it's up to 45%.

The other leg of burden sharing is of course resettlement. And I made references to, but

unfortunately just as the United States was putting into place a program to take 10,000 refugees. It had

only taken about 1,500 by midsummer. And then promised to increase the overall quota, not just for

Syrians, but the overall quota from 70 to a 100,000, the bombings in Paris has taken and you know the

subsequent arguments that have been circulating with respect to the resettlement of refugees.

I think I'd like to conclude, I realize we're very limited time, that at the end of the day we

must not forget that these are people just like us. And the UNHCR has done a tiny little survey that it

hasn't yet publicized, but the survey reveals how most of these people are middle class people. And

when UNHCR asked them why are you moving, a good proportion of them were saying for the education

of our kids. Worrying about the future of their kids, not themselves in the first place. So neighboring

countries, Europe and the global community at large, is facing a major challenge out there with respect to

protecting these refugees and thinking about their future. Thanks.

MS. STELZENMÜLLER: Thank you, Kemal. Just to salvage the honor of the moderator

here, this is a class case of Occam's Razor. Rather than the moderator trying to trip up her colleague,

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she simply forgot what she was going to ask him. (Laughter) Apologies, Kemal.

MR. KIRIŞCI: That's gracious of you.

MS. STELZENMÜLLER: With that, I would like to turn to my next colleague, Matteo

Garavoglia, who is our Fellow by the graces of the Council on the U.S. and Italy for a year. And Matteo is

a specialist on EU humanitarian policy and soft power. And in this case, I think it's fair to say you take the

view that neither is much in evidence in this crisis. And indeed we have seen I think confusion on the

European level and a great deal of dissonance and discord on the nation state level. Perhaps you would

like to elaborate, Matteo.

MR. GARAVOGLIA: Thank you, Constanze. Yeah, indeed I think we should think about

two Europe rather than one here. Because throughout the process I've seen kind of a split bipolar

personality disorder here. We have I think three set or dichotomies. One is a geographic dichotomy. A

second one is an institutional dichotomy. And a third one is a dichotomy in terms of the answers that

we're looking for.

Now, the first one, when we look at geography. I hate to say it, but we, and there are

some caveats, but overall we see that good old fashion split between West and Eastern Europe. It's not

clear cut, but it is there. We see on the one hand certain members states that are willing and able to

have a relatively open arms policy, bring in asylum seekers, allow them to lodge their asylum

applications. And on that front Germany and Sweden stand out for two different reasons. Germany

stands out in terms of the absolute numbers they are allowing to come in. And Sweden in terms of the

relative amount of people that it's willing to accept. Indeed, if you look, we have now at the moment we

have data just for the first quarter of 2015, and if you look at Syrians, which are the biggest groups of

asylum seekers, over 14,000 Syrians lodged asylum applications only to Germany. When it comes to

Sweden for the same period we're looking at, three and half thousand. In relative terms though, as a

percentage of the population that is far more.

So we have these open arms, this willingness to accept people. On the other hand

though, we saw unpleasant things, to say the very least in some other quarters. And I'm going to name

names, it is a pleasure to do so. (Laughter) We've seen --

MS. STELZENMÜLLER: Yes?

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MR. GARAVOGLIA: Yes, let's so that. We saw Hungary putting up border fences, and

effectively breaking the principle of no reform therefore make it impossible for anybody to lodge an

asylum application. We saw Slovakia taking European institutions to court against a decision to share the

burden in terms of asylum refugee policy. We can talk about that later. We see unfortunately the new

Polish government that just came took over, making a lot of unpleasant noises at every possible level.

Saying, well seeing what happened in Paris, we don't feel like taking anybody in anymore. Implicitly

making that link refugee potential terrorist.

So there's a lot of unpleasant stuff. Last thing I saw yesterday was the Czech president

going to an anti-refugee rally. So a dichotomy there. That's a geographic one. There is a second

dichotomy and that's an institutional one I think. And I really wish to stress that because I think that is

something that is missed. Sometimes we don't notice that I think adequately here in the United States in

particular. Understandably so, because European Institutional dynamics are complicated to say the least

for Europeans, as well.

We have the Commission, or European institutions, Brussels on the one hand, and the

member states on the other. What we saw has been a continuous trend over many months now whereby

EU institutions, and primarily the Commission has been ahead of the curve. Or maybe not ahead of the

curve, but coming up with coherent long-term proposals to address these challenges. And on the other

hand, the members states that have been applying the brakes to say the very least, dragging their feet,

taking commitments and then not respecting these commitments.

Now let me give you a couple of examples. I look just at the financial and the operational

side of things. On the financial side, there was an agreement in September, 23rd of September, to come

up with extra funding to manage all this. We were talking about 5.6 billion euros in the region of $6 billion.

The standard practice, let's put it like that, is that European institutions; i.e., the Commission comes up

with half of the cash through its budget, and the member states have to match that. Now where do we

stand today? Not even two months down the line the European Commission found the money in the

budget and there put on the plate ready, 2.8 billion euros. The member states just over 500 million. So

they are 2 billion short basically.

Again, the member states don't deliver when they're supposed to.

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Finally, on the operation side, because I think that is telling and it gives an idea what's

going on out there, you have two -- well you have many agencies in Europe, maybe too many, but you

have Frontex, to begin with, that is an embryo of EU border agency that tries to coordinate things on the

external borders. And you also have the European Asylum Support Office. These two agencies have

been asking for extra resources, extra stuff, officers to help out, to actually help out the member states on

the frontline, Greece, Italy, that are dealing with this. And they said, "Hey, we need just over a thousand

extra staff to deal with this."

The member states said, "No, problem we'll pledge officers. We'll help out." And today,

two months later, they have provided just over 500 staff. So, again, they don't do what they are supposed

to do.

Just a final point there in terms of numbers, which I think says it all, it was agreed, and

now we're talking about again over two months ago, to relocate 160,000 migrants that landed primarily in

Greece and in Italy, and to relocate them to other member states across the European Union, in a way to

share the burden. And say, "Hey, we all can help out hosting these people." Okay? Let's go ahead with

it. Finally, we're putting this in motion and we are relocating people, so airplanes are being, you know, an

airlift is being organized here and there between Athens on the one hand, and -- well not really Athens,

Greek islands and Italy, to other member states. What is the problem? The pace of all this.

At the current pace we will have relocated 160,000 people, which is a tiny percentage of

the number of people that we expect to arrive in Europe this year, which will probably be about ten times

as that, 1.6 million, could be a realistic figure.

MS. STELZENMÜLLER: A million of those possibly in Germany.

MR. GARAVOGLIA: Yeah. We'll relocate 160,000 at this speed, we'll be done with this

relocation in the year 2101. (Laughter) This is not good enough given that most of these people will be

very old or dead by then. Right?

I wrap it up there. So we have a problem again on the delivery, on an institutional level

this gap. And finally, we have a gap and a dichotomy in terms of answers. On the one hand, you have

those that say, "Well the answer here is to close borders." You know, seal borders, keep them out.

Problem solved. On the other hand, we have those that say, "Hey, we need a common asylum or

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refugee policy. We need an integrated Pan European framework to deal with this, effectively to welcome

people."

How do we find an answer there? I do not know. But what I do think this answer will

have to entail will be some sort of grand bargain. We will have to find a solution that brings these two

elements together.

And I want to end just with a bit of hope. It is there. It is in the pipeline. It's not public

really yet. But the European Commission is working on that. There are two main things. In December,

more likely in January, we'll see some early proposals for the establishment of a European Coast Guard,

and a European border protection force. So we're talking about the Europeanization of Europe's external

borders.

On the other hand, a bit later, first half of 2016, the Commission will come out again and

with more comprehensive proposals to reform the Dublin Convention which regulates together with other

things asylum and refugee policies, will come out with proposals for a Pan European asylum and refugee

policy effectively. I don't know how this will play out. My hope is that the commission will get traction with

the member states. My fear is that the member states once more will prove themselves to be just a relic

of the past.

MS. STELZENMÜLLER: Thank you very much for this critical assessment of where we

are. I think that's entirely accurate. I will just add to this an observation from the reporting that I've seen

in Germany, this whole notion of carting around people in Europe does hit one key difficulty, and it is what

people want, the people being carted around. These people have family in certain places. They have

heard that some places are better to go to than other places. And if you tell them well you're going there,

and regardless of whether your uncles or parents are in another country. They often find ways of evading

the carting efforts of the authorities, and that is something that the German authorities, in particular, are

seeing a lot of.

People arrive in refugee centers to be processed. They're there for a couple of days, and

then they suddenly disappear. This is not something that you can just control with force. And, again, it is

something that we are going to have to find more subtle ways of dealing with than just Commission

algorithms, airplanes, and carts.

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With that, I'm going to turn to Nathalie Tocci, who's here in her capacity as the Deputy

Director of IAI the Istituto Affari Internazionali in Rome. But who as my boss, Fiona Hill, said is also a

Senior Advisor to Federica Mogherini. So perhaps you can tell us a little bit about your experiences and

your observations at two levels, the travails of trying to forge a European policy at a time when European

governments and my government, Germany's government in particular, have been radically espousing

the reverse of that which is let's intergovernmentalize everything as much as we can. And of course, we

also know that the issue that we're talking about currently, which is how to dispose of refugees within the

borders of Europe is a matter within the terms of the competences of the European treaty a matter of

justice and home affairs, and therefore is among the intergovernmental competencies anyway. In other

words, you would have to actually specifically give this to European Union as a competence to deal with.

And if you want to add something perhaps on the Italian position, the Italian government's

position, as you see it. Italy, like all of the southern coastal countries, is particularly affected, more

affected than I think than many of the northern countries at this point, you're welcome. And glad you

could, despite your incredibly tight schedule, that you could make it to be with us today.

MS. TOCCI: Thanks. It's a real pleasure. And I'm far less knowledgeable that then two

previous speakers. Let me perhaps concentrate my remarks on three main points. Two of which I'll really

try to squeeze, because I think they were largely covered, but I'll just give a slightly different take on them.

And then concentrate really on the final point, which is the sort of what to do point. And in this respect, I

am talking entirely with my institute hat, just to be very clear.

So first point, what's the problem here? What are we talking about? I think it's quite clear

from what we've heard so far that essentially the problem is that this is the largest refugee flow that we

have seen since World War II, as stark at that. The numbers you have heard. It's important, particularly

when one talks about the European Union, to put those numbers in perspective at the same time. Yes,

we are talking about a million. We're talking about probably 1.6 million. In the years to come, given this

is not a phenomenon that is going to die any time soon, we will be talking in the millions. But we're not

talking tens of millions. And we are talking about European Union of 500 million.

And I think it's important to bear this in mind, not only because it's important to put things

in perspective, but also to be credible when we go and talk to the Lebanese, when we go and talk to the

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Jordanians. I mean we can't really go with a straight face and talk about how unstainable it is for the

European Union to host one maybe two, maybe even three million, when Turkey itself is coming close to

that number. And this is just one single country. So I think it's a big issue. But at the same time it's

important to put it in perspective.

And it's a big issue not because of the numbers. It's a big issue, I think for at least three

reasons. It's a big issue firstly because of the humanitarian crisis and the humanitarian concern. We are

talking about thousands of people dying. And thousands of people dying as they try and make their way

into Europe, because there are no legal channels for them to make their way into Europe. They don't, if

you like, opt to jump onto boats and try and cross the Mediterranean out of fun. There is no other way for

them to go and ask for a visa in Damasks in order to apply for their asylum status in Sweden. So it's a

humanitarian concern, because of the numbers of people die. It's a humanitarian concern because of the

vulnerability of people as they make their way into Europe.

It's a concern that has to do with politics in society. And politics in society and the

resilience of societies, mainly I would say not in the European Union. Kemal was talking about Lebanon

and Jordan, and it is a real question to what extent? Sometimes I actually wonder how is it possible that

Lebanon is still standing. So it's a question about the resilience of host countries. And to a very minor

extent, it's obviously also a societal issue and a political issue within the European Union. But, again, I

think it's very important to put this right into perspective and to know what we're talking about.

And then thirdly, and unfortunately, you know, I try always to be very careful in not

associating the two, but after Paris, it is also a security concern. And this is the real danger. It's a real

danger because precisely because we want to put the emphasis on the humanitarian, on the political side

of things. The minute in which the issue is securitized, because of events, it becomes a toxic

conversation. But I think that after the Paris attacks, that is a real danger. And I think it's important to

have a very sort of lucid debate about these issues in order to, yes, if you like, acknowledge and

recognize that thanks to the extent to which they exist, but at the same time not conflate the two too

much.

Second point I wanted to raise, has really got to do with the response so far. And here

I'm going to be very brief, because my Matteo really touched upon all of the things that have been done. I

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would --

MR. GARAVOGLIA: Or not.

MS. TOCCI: Or not. Well, I'll talk about the not later. So what has been done? I think

basically what we see is that there has been a rather considerable effort in the domain of containment

and externalization of the problem. So we have stepped up border security measures with sort of

reinforced budget for Frontex, the border agency of the European Union. There are plans in the making

towards moving into a European coast guard system, so that has to do, if you like, with border security

issues. There has been an effort in the direction of, if you like, saving lives along with anti-smuggling, the

CSDP mission, the Common Security and Defense Policy mission, Sophia, which has now entered into its

second phase, and this is about countering -- it's about saving lives. But it's also about countering

smuggling routes, and now that it's in its second phase, it is operating in the high seas. So something

has been done there.

And it has been about supporting. Supporting host states, but now after the (inaudible)

also trying to step up involvement in origin countries. And the numbers, if we add, if you like, the amount

of money committed which is a different pledge, which is a different issue, from implementation, if we

group together UN grants given through trust funds, the trust funds for Syria, trust fund for Africa, a

specific amount 3 billion pledged to Turkey, we're talking in the range of 9 billion euros, which is not small

amounts of money.

So I would say that as far as, if you like, containment and standardization quite a bit has

been done, or at least is in the pipeline. Something is beginning to move on the internal side, too, and

Matteo was mentioning this. I think he's very right in saying that the big push here is coming from the

European Commission and particular from the Commission President Juncker. Interesting the way in

which we are trying to get around questioning the Dublin regulation by first asserting the principle of

resettlement and relocation as an emergency measure, but of course this is an emergency that's going to

last for years. So this is I think quite in a sense a smart way of getting at the problem, trying to affirm a

principle. And then, of course, the idea is moving toward a more permanent system, but also a system

which encompasses far larger numbers, because you know, 160,000, as you said, I mean it's ridiculous.

But I remember sort of in conversations with Commission officials, they're very conscious

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obviously that the numbers are ridiculous, but for them what was important was to affirm the principle of

relocation. And, of course, in order to affirm that principle of relocation it was important not to make that

conversation more toxic than what it already was, and therefore to play down the numbers, if you like, as

much as possible.

Now, this is as far as what's been done. Third and final point that I wanted to raise is

really what should be done, and therefore what is not being done. And here I think that Commission

included, but of course the Commission, as you said, is probably the one that is furthest along the way.

But I think in general EU Inc. is just woefully behind the curve. I mean this is not a phenomenon that

we're gonna stop. And the sooner we acknowledge it, and have a sort of lucid and sober conversation

about it, the better it's gonna be in terms of equipping ourselves to deal with the challenge.

So what should be done? I think we're essentially talking about legal channels for the

refugees to come in. I think secondly, and this is probably going to be the easiest part to do, stepping up

even further particularly as far as implementation is concerned, the foreign policy, the external side of it.

So that the money that is pledged actually making sure that that money gets to the places and that it's

spent in the right way.

And then the third, and probably most difficult bit is the point that, Matteo, you were

raising, moving toward genuinely common asylum system. But here, and this is the final point that I

wanted to make is, what are the political conditions for this to happen. My hunch, and this is an entirely

personally view, is that precisely because of the geographic mainly division that you were talking about,

we are actually unlikely to see an EU of 28 moving towards a common asylum system that provides for

the kind of things that I've been mentioning, legal channels, permanent resettlement schemes, etcetera.

You know common asylum system Inc.

I think what is interesting about the way in which the situation has shifted actually quite

dramatically over the last few months, is that whereas up until last summer, I would say, you essentially

had Italy kicking and screaming and saying the EU's got to do more about this problem. And kind of

everyone turning the other way. Now you begin to see a core of EU countries, which essentially revolve

around the founding six members plus Austria, plus Sweden, plus probably Finland, but that's basically

what we're talking about. Where I think it is possible to move towards a genuinely common asylum

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system.

MS. STELZENMÜLLER: Let's remind people who the core countries are: Germany,

France --

Ms. TOCCI: Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxemburg, and to which I

would add, as I said, Austria, and the Nordic countries. So that core, which is probably able and willing to

move towards a genuinely common asylum system, and an outer core. And I think what's interesting

about this, is that whereas we're getting used to having discussion of a two-level Europe when it comes to

the Eurozone, the ins and outs of European economic governance, to me probably this is gonna end up

being a more important and more interesting two-level method of moving forward toward integration.

MS. STELZENMÜLLER: Yep. Thank you, Nathalie. I think that this is it's odd, we really

have three crises right now in Europe that seem to clamor for a common an EUized approach. One, of

course, is the Eurozone crisis, the next is common security and defense, and the third one is the refugee

crisis. And I think it's anybody's get right now which one will be the first where you have a move towards

deeper integration. But I think all three are really clamoring for this. And this could be the kind of crisis

that by its sheer magnitude pushes us through the sonic wall of deeper integration.

I have been asked by one of my colleagues to mention that we have a Twitter hashtag for

this event. It's called #RefugeeCrisis. And also, I've been hearing an iPhone pinging rather insistently.

It's immensely distracting. If you could check your iPhones and turn that off, I would be most grateful.

And with that, I'm going to turn --

SPEAKER: But how do we Tweet at the same time?

MS. STELZENMÜLLER: Well, you can Tweet, but you don't have to let your iPhone ping

at the same time. You can turn off the audio, I think as you know. Now, I would like to turn to Leon

Wieseltier, another of our distinguished colleagues, whom I keep having to remind myself to call the

Isaiah Berlin Senior Fellow. Although I will add that one of my favorite, I think probably my all-time

favorite and loveliest of all Irving Berlin pieces, is the Russian Lullaby, which is about Russian refugees

far away from their home country having arrived in a America. If you don't know Russian Lullaby, by

Irving Berlin, go on iTunes and find it. It's one of his most haunting pieces.

Now, Leon, I think can speak to us on several levels that are of concern here. And

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maybe sort of elevate this conversation from the mundane policy levels in which we live to some of

philosophical levels. Two that concern me, for one in Europe we're now hearing talk of Europe is at war,

France is at war, we are all at war. Which I have to say, for a German, are really difficult to handle,

because of course, and me particularly being a German lawyer, I am minded of Carl Schmitt's Doctrine of

Permanent War, which helped to empower a certain group of German politicians in a certain decade in

the 20th century with ghastly consequences. And it was, as some of you may know, revived via the good

officers of Leo Strauss, by the neocons post 9/11 to justify the global war on terror. That's one level I

think on which me might sort of articulate some concern.

The other level of course is that this has started to play a role in the U.S. Presidential

campaign and including with suggestions of forming an Army out of the young Syrian men who have

arrived in Europe and sending them back to Syria to fight. So what is this doing? What do you think of

the U.S. responses? What is this doing to our societies and to our relations with the rest of the world?

MR. WIESELTIER: Yeah. There's so much to say. I'm happy to find myself in the

company of people who know so much more about the details of policy and their implementation than I

do. I'm not scholar or an expert on refugees, even though I'm the son of refugees. And what I propose to

do is to answer your questions and discuss the American debate, not so much in terms of the policy

dimensions, but in terms of cultural and political and moral dimensions. Because the response to the

refugee crisis in Europe and in the United States is as much cultural as it is anything else. Even before

the refugee crisis in Europe, Europe was in the throes of a bitter debate about its proper relationship to

the other, to the stranger, to the migrant. And it needs no repeating that Europe's history in the matter of

the other, and the stranger, and the migrant, is not exactly glorious. There are cultural traditions, even

moral traditions that are at play here, that are impossible to quantify, but are nonetheless relevant.

If I were to use one word to characterize the American debate right now, speaking very

analytically I would describe it as disgraceful. (Laughter) It is disgraceful because right now it is a debate

between xenophobia and nativism on the one hand, and bad faith and cowardice on the other. I see no

heroes in my country right now on this question. The xenophobia and the nativism are being expressed

extravagantly by various Republicans, by Donald Trump. May the day come soon when we no longer

have to mention his name in any context. (Laughter) But Trump speaks, he is the Viktor Orban of the

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Republican party, only with worse hair. (Laughter) Jeb Bush, as the President pointed out the other day,

recently said something disgraceful about accepting only Christian refugees and not Muslim refugees.

When these Americans speak this way, they are betraying one of the truly revolutionary aspects of the

American dispensation. That is to say the United States, unlike Europe whose culture and history of the

nation state has always consisted in the belief that a nation should be incarnated in a state, and a state

should exemplify a nation so that ideally the cultural boundaries and the political boundaries coincide, but

of course they never do, so there's this thing called the problem of minorities, which Europeans have

been dealing with now for a hundred years. Unlike that entire tradition, the United States is a democracy,

which is naturally multiethnic. We are a naturally multiethnic society. We were a multiethnic society long

before we became an officially multicultural society. Multiculturalism is simply the doctrine and culture of

the multiethnic realities of our population, and of the fact that membership in our society, or rather

legitimacy in our society is conferred by that sacred hyphen, by that gorgeous little hyphen that all

Americans bear with the great telling exception of the Native Americans, who of course weight more

heavily on our conscience than almost any other group.

But these Republicans who speak this way obviously have no understanding that they

are actually being treasonous about one of the primary philosophical gifts of the United States to the

world. Now having said that, I want to say that President Obama was absolutely correct to denounce

what Jeb Bush said as shameful. But when I heard him say this, I wondered by what right he says this,

because in fact the Obama Administration is unbelievably delinquent on the question of refugees. Since

the beginning of the Syrian war 2011, we have accepted 2,179 Syrians. That's it. And since October 1st,

when the crisis began in Europe, we have accepted a sum total of 305 Syrian refugees into the United

States. So the President is perfectly right, as he always is when he rises to a high moral level, to

castigate the Republicans for what they're saying. But the policy of this administration has to be accused

of bad faith in this regard.

Moreover, if you've been reading the papers or listening the news, you will have noticed

that Democrats on the question of the security argument against accepting refugees, are as cowardly and

as craven as Republicans. Everybody is in a panic by this argument. Nobody has the guts to get up and

explain exactly why the panic about security is unjustified even though obviously there is some slight

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danger. Between 1880 and 1924 the United States accepted 4 million Italian immigrants. With those 4

million Italian immigrants, we got Enrico Fermi, Joe DiMaggio, Frank Sinatra, Antonin Scalia, and Al

Capone. Right, and Al Capone, right?

Now, I gather that for some of you Scalia might be the deal breaker (laughter) but that's

not what I'm here to say. That's not what I'm here to say. No one in his right mind would suggest that we

should have turned away 4 million Italians, because they brought the mafia with them, etcetera, etcetera.

But no Democrats, that I know, have the guts to say anything remotely like this.

Moreover, when the administration talks about raising its quotas of refugees to 70,000

and then finally to 100,000 by 2017, in the first place, they are speaking globally. These are all the

refugees from the entire planet that we will accept. And secondly, to the best of my understanding as far

as I know, the United Nations there already exists a list that the United Nations has recommended to the

United States of 16,000 Syrian refugees. Which is to say, that if the White House actually acts upon its

willingness to accept 10,000 Syrian refugees, which is extremely unlikely for political and other reasons,

that will only leave 6,000 more on the UN list before we even get into the rest of the problem. So, as I

say, the debate right now in this country strikes me as a debate between people who are wrong and don't

want to do anything and people who are right and don't want to do anything. And this is a very, very

discouraging situation.

There are two ways not to think about the refugees crisis. And the first one is this, first it

is important not to absorb the discussion of the refugee crisis into the larger discussion of immigration.

And the second one is that it is important not to absorb the discussion of the refugee crisis into the

discussion of intervention and foreign policy. Both of these mistakes are being made everywhere.

Refugees are not ordinary immigrants. It is very important to understand that. And this has been

recognized in all the international conventions. You know more about this than I do. But the definitions of

the refugee are clear, they are in an especially urgent set of circumstances. And we'll get back to the

urgency in a moment.

It is also important not to absorb the discussion into the larger debate about what to do

about the Syrian war. And that, for a start, is for a practical reason which is that it is not clear what to do

about the Syrian war. Nobody, as far as I can see in this country, is especially exercised about ending

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the Syrian war. And if we are to wait for a political solution in Syria for the people whose photographs you

saw on that wall to find asylum, they are going to freeze through many, many winters in those woods.

They're going to freeze through many, many winters in those woods.

So I think it is important in order to refine the debate in this country, I think it is important

that we refresh our understanding of certain things. I think it is very important to recognize that in the last

six years humanitarianism and human rights has disappeared as a pillar of American foreign policy, and

as a consequence our sense of rescue and our sense of relief as primary objectives of American foreign

policy have atrophied, have seriously atrophied. And we will not be able to craft a vigorous and effective

response to the refugee crisis, unless we restore the centrality of the concepts of rescue and relief to our

foreign policy. Which is to say, unless we get passed the kind of political tone that we've adopted and are

no longer embarrassed to adopt a more moral tone. Now I understand that a more moral tone was

adopted at the outbreak of the Iraq war, but we cannot live in a world in which it is forbidden to order the

spaghetti until we ascertain that George Bush never ordered the spaghetti. This refugee crisis calls for

immediate action.

Now when I say immediate action that means also we must refresh our understanding of

what an emergency is. What sort of set of circumstances is an emergency? In an emergency certain

conventional categories and processes have to be suspended and accelerated, otherwise you simply

have misunderstood the situation. There are circumstances in which the normal turning of the wheels,

the normal processes, if they persist it's a sign that you simply have misunderstood where you are. For

example, genocide would be the most obvious case. It makes no sense to respond slowly to a genocide.

It makes no sense to escalate, as one is taught to do as a strategist, in a genocide. There are certain

crises that are above all characterized by an element of time, of urgency. And when on reads about the

slowness of the processes that are even now being put in place by our government, when one reads that

the vetting process will take 18 to 24 months, you wonder if the people who are making these policies

actually understand the problem for which the polices are being made.

MS. STELZENMÜLLER: And instead of which of course we're applying the term

emergency to the powers of the executive at home.

MR. WIESELTIER: That's right. That's right.

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MS. STELZENMÜLLER: Even more morally problematic.

MR. WIESELTIER: That's right. Now it is true that not everything is an emergency, but it

is also true that some things are emergencies. And the question I have for us, as Americans, about our

government, generally is whether or not we are any longer capable of acting quickly about anything. And

whether or not we are intellectually prepared for the kind of historical contingencies with which we are

now presented, which after all not could have been predicted, were predicted. Three and four years ago

people warned, myself included, and I'm not a rocket scientist, that unless we do something in Syria the

following things will happen.

And when people told us well we cannot say with

certainty what the outcome of our efforts will be, we would say that's right, but we can tell you with

certainty what the outcome of a lack of effort would be. And we are witnessing consequences that were

foretold. And yet we are intellectually unprepared for this and operationally unprepared for this. And we

need to take lessons, because otherwise we are always going to lag behind evil, even in situations in

which we decide to do something about it. We will always come too late. And if you come too late to a

genocide, or you come too late to a refugee crisis, or you come too late to an ethnic cleansing, you have

not covered yourself with glory. You have not acquitted yourself of your duty. You've merely prevented a

disaster from becoming complete, which is something, but it's actually very little. Thank you.

MS. STELZENMÜLLER: Well I will only add, as the German on the panel, that there are

a couple other issues raised currently that we haven't mentioned yet. And I'm just going to, as it were,

point to them and perhaps somebody in the audience will wish to take them up. Which is that, of course,

what we are looking at here creates not just issues of domestic stability, but also of Europe's ability,

Europe's capability, Europe's legitimacy as a foreign and security policy actor. The French president, two

days ago, specifically raised the Solidarity Clause in the Lisbon Treaty, Article 42.7, to those of you who

don't know the Lisbon Treaty by heart, as of course we all do, this is the EU Treaty equivalent of Article 5

of NATO.

So far there has been no explicit response to this, although the German Chancellor

Merkel in one of her more emotional and forceful speeches right after the Paris attacks said we will fight

this with you. So the German government, I would say has deliberately hasn't said, "We will join you in

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call to arms." We won't send fighter planes to Syria, some of those by the way are patrolling the areas

over the Baltics, because Russia and the Ukraine conflict are still out there and still unresolved. But it

also hasn't excluded that possibly. So there are a number of weighty and potentially consequential

options still out there. With that, I'm going to remind you of your Twitter hashtag #RefugeeCrisis, and I

will invite questions and short comments from you. Again, please identify yourselves or your affiliation,

ask a question or a comment, make both of them brief, snappy, and addressed to a person or two.

All right. There are microphones heading your way, how about this lady here?

MS. DELO: My name is Barbara Delo and I'm from the Leadership Institute and I'm

addressing my comments to the other three panelists, except for the man with the --

MR. WIESELTIER: With the white hair, yeah.

MS. DELO: I'm sorry, I'm not good at names. (Laughter)

MS. STELZENMÜLLER: So Wieseltier.

MR. WIESELTIER: That's fine.

MS. DELO: Moderator, who addressed it already, given both the enormous human

tragedy that's occurring and the occasional but real danger that will continue to occur as a result of mass,

but sometimes chaotic migration, are more countries now, and I think you did address this, and you did

address this, reconsidering an interventionist policy to stabilize the countries of origin, so that safe areas

could be established within those countries, and the people could stay closer to their homes?

MS. STELZENMÜLLER: Thank you very much. I'm going to take two more. The

gentleman over here.

MR. SCHULTZ: My name is Karl Schultz. I'm a visiting Research Fellow at American

University, sadly from Poland, not from Germany although my last name is Schultz. I want to sorry for

that, because my society, society full of Donald Trumps, just like and Orbáns and Kaczyńskis as our chief

or leader of our site right now. So my question is to all of you, because as Nathalie mentioned we are

going in a new direction of two level, as we call it, in Poland (inaudible) Europe, European Union. And it's

not an issue of Kaczyńskis, Orbáns, Trumps, and whatever fanatics are there, but the societies that are

electing those people. So what can we do? What should we do? And how to convince societies that

refugees are not scums, they are not parasites, and we should not reopen death camps? And this is

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actually the narrative that this president in Polish republics feel from now. Thank you.

MS. STELZENMÜLLER: Thank you. How about a third one, here, man? I've got you

covered in the back. Next round. No, no, go ahead. You're next.

MS. HAMAS: Eva Hamas, retired professor. None of you have mentioned the fact that

so many of these refugees are Muslims and that accounts for a lot of the hostility towards them. And I

wonder if any of you have comments on that? And also just as a corrective neither nor the United States

has a very good record about refugees from World War II on. So to act as if we did so much better a long

time ago, is just not the fact. And European countries turned people back at the borders knowing they

would be killed and the United States didn't accept very many. And under very strict circumstances.

MS. STELZENMÜLLER: Well if I might perhaps add a response to that. I think that

that's definitely true between 1933 and '45. After '45, I mean population movements in Europe were so

large for a policy of exclusion to be basically useless, my country alone I believe took in 13 million

deportees. And while they were Germans, by the standards of the time, Schliengen Germans were not

considered Germans by Rhinelanders. And they were treated with great unfriendliness for the next 20,

30 years. Some of my friends are children of those deportees and they can tell you long stories about

this.

I mean I think it's useful perhaps to compare what's happening now, the more than one

million arriving in Europe with the Yugoslav wars. Where I think the biggest number of, I don't have all the

numbers at hand, but my country took in I think 390,000 refugees. But most of whom actually returned

within two or four years after the Dayton Peace Agreement. So this is we're looking at, yes, and my

former GMF colleague's nodding, I mean in other words this is just for Germany alone is three times as

many.

Kemal, would you like to take up the Muslim point? I mean I'm sure we could speak to

this as well, but I mean it's, and I don't want to put Kemal on the spot for this alone, but since you are from

Turkey, I think it's worth giving you the first word on this. And we'll come to your support.

MR. KIRIŞCI: I'll be rebellious and respond to the safe zone one first.

MS. STELZENMÜLLER: Okay.

MR. KIRIŞCI: Because it happens --

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MS. STELZENMÜLLER: Do you notice a pattern here? (Laughter). I do.

MR. KIRIŞCI: They're like this in private by the way.

MS. STELZENMÜLLER: All the time. The entire institution.

MR. KIRIŞCI: It happens that the Turkish government pushes very hard on the notion of

a safe zone. And it advocates the idea because of the increasing number of refugees and recognizing

that there are domestic political consequences of their presence there. Yet, safe zones are very

complicated to implement. You send people there and then what happens if Savronika repeats itself?

How are you going to create the circumstances that will actually ensure the security of refugees that

might be sent back there?

And then secondly, are governments who call for safe zone, really call them for to benefit

the refugees, or might they be having other political agendas in their minds? So our position, and here I

mean our with Elizabeth, Beth, that we've been working on these refugees reports, is the one that upheld

by human rights advocacy groups that safe zones it's better to stay away from them. Unless you're going

to be able to repeat the kind of exercise that took place back in 1991, when two and a half million Kurdish

Kurds fled into Turkey and Iran when Saddam's military tried to gas them.

On that occasion there was a UN Security Council decision and a determination on the

part of this country to enforce a safe zone, which did allow Kurdish refugees to return back to safety and

then open the way to today's Kurdish regional government. One of the few places that remain relatively

secure.

Very quickly, let me take up a very difficult question.

MS. STELZENMÜLLER: Sorry, Kemal, if I might add something on the point of safe

zones. I was a journalist before I joined think tanks and have been both in Africa and Balkans, and in

Afghanistan. And I wrote about military insecurity issues. And I assure you that there are a great deal of

-- there are misconceptions in population discourse about safe zones and I would just like to add a couple

here. For one, we have catastrophic, bloody with dictators using safe zones and taking civil populations

hostage by putting air defense on hospitals and schools. Safe zones also means that you have to take

out the air defense of a country. If you want to establish a safe zone without putting in ground troops, you

have to do a hell of a lot of bombing sorties and I assure you that the owner of the regime in question will

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do everything to make sure that you create a lot of collateral damage while doing so by putting the air

defense batteries on the schools and the hospitals.

In other word, Western experiences with this have not been great. And very often, we

have had Western generals and politicians promising that no troops will be put on the ground, and they

have had to break their word and put in ground troops, because that was the only way of coming to grips

with the problem. So please nobody here should have any illusions whatsoever about the ease with

which the concept of a safe zone, in particularly in a situation where the dictator in question still has his

own armed forces and his own air defenses can be put into practice.

Sorry, Kemal, go on answer whatever question you want.

MR. KIRIŞCI: The question that you asked me to respond to is a very difficult and broad

question, however there is a debate that is just starting amongst Muslims, or Muslim countries that tries to

address the very fact that there are groups out there in Syria, and beyond Syria that are acting on behalf

of the religion of Islam. They are resorting to kind of violence that is very difficult to stomach for Muslims

themselves. However, this debate is only starting and yet I like to empathize with Karl's remarks that he

just made, two days ago Turkey and Greece played a national soccer game with the presence of the

Turkish Prime Minister, as well as the Greek one, which was very nice. Before the game started there

was a call for a one-minute silence to remember those who fell in Paris. Amongst the spectators there

were those who were whistling and throwing Islamic slogans.

So the problem you are referring to Karl, does exist there too. And when a hundred plus

people died right across the Ankara train station, to which I have a personal attachment. And there was

again a soccer game and a call was made to remember these people, again, in the stands there were

people who were booing and whistling. This is a challenge. And this is a reality. Today in the news, I

read in an opinion poll that in Turkey, amongst the people who were polled, there were 8% who

sympathizes, empathizes, and supports at least at an ideological level ISIS. And 8% out of 70 million

that's an important number. So the challenges are not only here in the West that Leon is making

references to in the U.S., or in Europe, but also in the very countries that are trying to cope with this

refugee crisis, but the countries of origin, too.

So I have a solution to it? I wish I had.

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MR. WIESELTIER: Could I add to what Kemal said. I think you're absolutely right.

MS. STELZENMÜLLER: I'm not forgetting you.

MR. WIESELTIER: I'm sorry, am I not allowed?

MS. STELZENMÜLLER: No, no. Of course you are. (Laughter) Jesus, I don't get no

respect. Go ahead.

MR. WIESELTIER: No, I think you're right. I think that in so far as what we're witnessing

is an internecine war within the Muslim world for the identify of Islam, that is an outcome that the West

cannot bring about. We cannot do anything about. All we can do is, well not all we can do, this will be

decided within the Muslim world. But I do think that since there are forces outside the Muslim world that

support certain extreme elements within the Muslim world, it would be foolish for the West to just sit back

and watch the fight, as it were. And I think that where we identify elements, parties, movements that are

pushing back intellectually, theologically, culturally against our common enemies, as it were, I think we

have an obligation to find ways to support them. I really do.

And it is not a sign of respect, you know, there is this view in the Obama years that if you

intervene in a country you disrespect it. Now, sometimes that's certainly true. It used to be called

imperialism. But sometimes that's not the case at all. So for example, in the Syrian conflict when we

debate about western intervention, we seem to, on behalf of the moderates, ground troops, and I know

this is heretical, I think we should permit ourselves to imagine the possibility of ground troops, it's not. But

when we think about this, we seem to forget that our side already has Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah with

him. Jabhat al-Nusra already has Saudi Arabia, and Qatar with them. So I fail to see the justice of the

situation that the only elements in the Syrian conflict that will have no support from outside, will actually

be the ones that are opposed to both these villains. And for that reason even though it is an internecine

struggle, finally we have obligations to help certain elements, I think.

MS. STELZENMÜLLER: Nathalie, would you like to take up the question from our Polish

friend, about civil society?

MR. KIRIŞCI: Can I answer just the other way around, as well. (Laughter) Because we

were -- I'm sorry. (Laughter)

MS. STELZENMÜLLER: I'm wondering whether I should just go have coffee and leave

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you guys. (Laughter) What questions would you like to answer, and then what order?

MR. GARAVOGLIA: Because we were talking to each other behind the scenes.

MS. TOCCI: We coordinated.

MS. STELZENMÜLLER: Okay. All right. In that case, tell me how you'd like to do this?

MR. GARAVOGLIA: It's Italians conspiring against the Germans again. (Laughter)

MS. STELZENMÜLLER: And I would like to -- Leon Wieseltier's remarks have a distinct,

had several references to Italy, if you will have noticed that, yeah? The mafia, spaghetti and so. There is

something going on here. Anyway, Matteo, your turn.

MR. GARAVOGLIA: Unless Nathalie.

MS. TOCCI: Okay. Several very short points. I mean just I think, yes, in theory yes. But

--

MR. WIESELTIER: It's not a good beginning.

MS. TOCCI: No. (Laughter) My question is can you introduce me to these moderates?

MR. WIESELTIER: Well that's a very interesting --

MS. TOCCI: I mean the six that are left, the six meaning the six vetted, CIA, (inaudible).

I mean the problem is that I think your argument is correct, but unfortunately perhaps out of mistakes,

we've gone past that point. Haven't we? I mean --

MR. WIESELTIER: I don't know. I'm quite certain that all the easy answers are behind

us. That I'm sure about. I'm also sure that the same people who are telling me that we can't find

moderates now, were telling me this three and four years ago when we could find them. So the question

for me at least is rather a bitter one.

MS. TOCCI: Yeah. But let me --

MR. WIESELTIER: And thirdly, it is hard for me to believe that the entirety of the Syrian

population consists of extremists of one kind of another.

MR. TOCCI: No, no, no. I mean absolutely. I'm absolutely agreed with that. But we're

talking here about militants. I have, frankly speaking, problems in making the distinction between, if you

like, good jihadists and bad jihadists.

MR. WIESELTIER: Yeah.

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MS. TOCCI: And I think that these people morph from one group into the other, often

depending on who's winning. So --

MR. WIESELTIER: And who's paying.

MS. TOCCI: And who's paying, absolutely. And who's paying.

MR. WIESELTIER: And we weren't paying anybody.

MS. TOCCI: Yeah, yeah. On the question of interventionism in general, I mean I think

we have to go beyond assuming that intervention is necessarily military. I think it's a question of thinking

about what more we can be doing, but not necessarily in the ways in which we're used to doing it. So for,

I'm not going to say anything about the safe zones, because I completely agree with everything that has

been said. But I think that there are more things that we could be doing at a local level. I mean there are

some local cease fire, and this is not Syria, I mean this is Libya, this is a general trend.

In cases of state implosion, because this is what we're talking about, in some places you

have pockets of peace developing because ultimately people want to survive. Should we be doing more

there? Should we be helping and support local cease fires more? Should we be helping in there where

you have a municipality that is somehow still functioning, making sure that it functions better? Basically

looking at where local seeds of peace exist and trying to do what we can in order to make them blossom,

rather than necessarily assuming that doing more means either military intervention, or banging heads

together in a hotel in Vienna. Which doesn't mean to say that one shouldn't bang their heads together in

hotels in Vienna, but one should only do that, because otherwise is doing too little and too late.

And Article 42, so this is again, just to reiterate, this is the Solidarity Clause within EU

treaties. And I would link up sort of the interpretation of that, to what I just said. The natural instinct is to

assume that the solidarity clause that we should all go and bomb together, is that necessarily what is

meant? Shouldn't we interpret, for example, in terms of intelligence cooperation? There is bilateral

intelligence cooperation in the EU, bilateral. There is actually not a functioning multilateral system across

the EU on intelligence cooperation. Isn't that a possible, valid, and more meaningful interpretation of

Article 42 at this point?

MS. STELZENMÜLLER: All right.

MR. WIESELTIER: Could I just quickly, two things. One you speak as if, let me just

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assure you that the United States certainly and probably the West is in no danger of launching any major

military action in the near future. So it's not as if the sabers are being rattled and rational people have to

rush and calm people down, because that's not what's going to happen.

Secondly, I think it's very important to point out, that if one is interested in a political

solution, say in Syria, the condition for a political solution is a change of the situation on the battle field.

That is to say, it's very important that we are so panicked, if you will, about the military uses of military

power, that we forgotten the political uses of military power. And it seems to me that unless ISIS can go

no further, because it is physically blocked, in the same by the way unless we raise the cost to Putin's

aggression in the Ukraine, so that it becomes politically unpalatable for him at home, which can also I

believe be done only physically, we will not get to the political and the diplomatic solutions which we all

want and which, of course, are the only last thing solutions.

MS. STELZENMÜLLER: Matteo?

MR. GARAVOGLIA: I want to follow up quickly on something that Nathalie brought up at

the beginning when she made our first intervention, and link to that to an old obsession of mine which is

the fact that I think this policy area, like 90% of the policy areas we deal with, and we struggle with at the

European level, boils down to a problem of governance. Now, we have this issues whereby politics; i.e.,

political life in Europe still takes place at a national level. The average European citizens lives political life

at a national level, as a Frenchman, as German, as a Spaniard. Yet, policymaking has to be taking place

at the supranational level, at a European level. So we have mismatch. We have gap between politics

and policymaking. That is a general problem I think that underlines a lot of the struggles we have in

Europe. But on top of it, we talk about a policy area that goes to touch the most atavic, primitive

emotional dimension we all have. The stranger, the foreigner, the xenophobia, feelings, religion, all this

stuff comes into play. So it becomes way more emotional, and I think that we should keep this in mind,

because I do not know what will be the answer and the solution to all this. But these elements will have

to come in when we craft a solution, as Nathalie was suggesting, which will have to be by definition

something that will take care of this dimension, bringing together some member states that will move

forward, and others that will not. Could be around that old European core, with some outer member

states.

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Because the social, cultural, political background of our countries, of our member states,

are still too far. I close with an example in that respect, a few weeks ago I heard very, very, very high

ranking Polish officials saying that, "Ooh, it's a problem if migrants and refugees come to Poland,

because they carry diseases with them." Disease though that their bodies are used to, so they're not a

problem for them, but we, as Europeans, we're not used to those diseases. Our bodies cannot cope with

those. That's the feeling.

On the other hand, across the border in Berlin, 45 kilometers, that's what, 35 miles, that's

the distance between the Polish border to Berlin, capital of Germany, 35 miles. You have the former

mayor of Berlin that famously said two things. Well, Berlin is poor but hey it is sexy. And by the way, I'm

gay and I think it's cool. The day after he won a landslide victory. Very different political culture. This will

have to be part of the stuff we keep in mind as we craft a solution.

MS. STELZENMÜLLER: Now, we have two minutes to 5:30 and I fear that the time has

come for me to no longer accept any questions. I think in conclusion, I will only remember you of the

famous European soccer axiom which is, "It lasts 90 minutes and Germany wins." (Laughter) This is a

case --

MR. GARAVOGLIA: We might go an extra time.

MS. STELZENMÜLLER: This is an exception. Well, yes, there is also of course there is

extra time, and Germany wins. (Laughter) This case we're sticking to 90 minutes, and you will agree with

me it's been a clear case of foreign ill against Germany, which as it happens is a not inaccurate picture of

how things are working out for Germany in this particular context at the moment. So I would like you to

thank my panelists with me, who have been excellent. Of course, we haven't covered all the bases, but

there will be many more events for the Center for the U.S. and Europe, with some of these colleagues,

with other colleagues, with other quests from outside. Stay with us, follow our issues on the website, and

I'm sure we will see many of you again. Thank you very much for joining us. (Applause)

* * * * *

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CERTIFICATE OF NOTARY PUBLIC

I, Carleton J. Anderson, III do hereby certify that the forgoing electronic file when originally

transmitted was reduced to text at my direction; that said transcript is a true record of the proceedings

therein referenced; that I am neither counsel for, related to, nor employed by any of the parties to the

action in which these proceedings were taken; and, furthermore, that I am neither a relative or employee

of any attorney or counsel employed by the parties hereto, nor financially or otherwise interested in the

outcome of this action.

Carleton J. Anderson, III

(Signature and Seal on File)

Notary Public in and for the Commonwealth of Virginia

Commission No. 351998

Expires: November 30, 2016

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